Hi Guys and gals,

I have a new work laptop that I bring home. I can access my home wireless network to use the internet but I can't see the printer on the base station (home desktop that is always on).
- the printer on the desktop is indeed shared
- the computers are in different workgroups (laptop usually is on work domain but I log in using cached credentials)

Can I use that printer if they are on diff workgroups?

Curlyben

The base station that you are refering to is this the WiFi router and is the printer attached by USB to it ?
What model is it ??
If so I have a similar setup using a USR WiFi router.
Basically you have to make sure that the print driver is on each machine that you want to use the printer on.

cajalat

You can do one of two things to get around the problem quickly:

a) change your home network to a workgroup that matches that of your work.
b) Setup your home computer to run printing services and then on your work laptop setup a TCP/IP printer and point it at the IP of your home computer.

Hope this helps Need.

Casey

Curlyben

This may help, OK its for my USR9108, but the setup should be similar.

Curlyben

Nuts I just reread your question and had a serious D'oH moment.
Ignore all my Router stuff as it doesn't apply.

OK have you tried mapping the printer by IP address ?
\\192.168.x.x\printer
You'll still need the correct print driver on your laptop

NeedKarma

Should I set up my home computer to have a static IP in order to use that option?

I don't think I can change my home desktop Workgroup to match the laptop since the laptop is set for our department domain - please correct me if I'm wrong here.

Ben: I'm using a Comtrend DSL modem going into a Microsoft wireless router (got it real cheap of course, they stopped making them)

Curlyben

YES, will make things a hell of alot easier

WoW interesting how America likes to go for seperate bits where as UK prefers all in one gateways.

NeedKarma

Ok, I'll set it up in a while, gotta open a wine bottle first.

BTW - Canada here. We're a little funny about that. Kinda like kiwis and aussies.

Curlyben

Sorry I ment the North Americas
I hear you same as England not being the same as Europe.

cajalat

I'm about 90% sure (I don't have a laptop to try this anymore as I have switched to Macs). I used to have a WinXP laptop that was part of the domain at work (I'm 90% sure it was). And I had a similar problem where I wanted to print and use shared drives at home. So what I did was setup my home workgroup to be the same as that of work. Then my laptop not being able to find a DC would login me using cached credentials. Once I'm logged in since I had a local work group that trusted anyone in the same workgroup would allow the laptop to use local resources. Accessing the laptop from the local computers was another matter as the laptop did not trust it. I had to share and allow anyone access on the laptop before I would be able to access laptop shares from the local home net.

Casey

P.S. Agree with Ben that static will make things easier.